The rapidly evolving supercomputing technology has
fundamentally changed the way of conducting basic and applied
sciences from lab-based small-scale experiments to computer-based
large-scale simulations, which generate huge amounts of simulation
datasets. These datasets must be further processed and analyzed by
geographically located scientists using globally distributed
computer and networking resources to produce unprecedented data
collections, simulations, visualizations, and analysis. The success
of these workflow applications requires a highly adaptive and
massively scalable distributed high performance computing platform
that provides optimized computing and networking services.

Wireless Sensor Networks

Recent developments in Micro-Electro-Mechanical
Systems (MEMS) make it now possible to deploy a large number of
inexpensive and small sensors to achieve quality through quantity in
complex applications. These cheap and tiny sensors are typically
powered by irreplaceable batteries of limited energy supply, a large
portion of which is consumed by the communication tasks. Therefore,
minimizing the total energy consumption for both sensor data
collection and routing is critical to ensuring sustained operations
of these large-scale WSNs.

Cyber Security

The successful execution of network-based
applications in various military, scientific, and engineering
domains requires a timely, reliable, and accurate flow of
information in cyber space, ranging from mission-critical sensor
networks and high-performance optical lambda grids, to the global
Internet in support of remote operation, distributed control, and
online collaboration. To ensure the security of data transfer and
processing, cyber space must be safeguarded and protected against
various types of attacks (both stealth and overwhelming) launched by
the adversary or malicious users. Developing effective security
monitoring mechanisms to provide cyber situation awareness has
become an increasingly important focus within the network research
and development community. I worked as a full-time intern at Oak
Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the summer 2009.